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    Investigation of the interaction between nanoparticles, asphaltenes, and silica surfaces by real-time quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation

    Year: 2021

    Journal: Can. J. Chem. Eng., Volume 99, NOV, page 2452–2466

    Authors: Montoya, Tatiana; Jaiswal, Archana; Nassar, Nashaat N.

    Organizations: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC); Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the Schulich School of Engineering at the University of Calgary; North America Exploration and Production Company; Chevron Energy Technology Company

    Keywords: asphaltenes; formation damage; nanofluids; QCM-D; wettability alteration

    The effects of nanofluids as wettability alternators and inhibitors of asphaltene precipitation and formation damage were studied in this work. Silicate-based nanoparticles with different chemical surfaces, named neutral (NN), basic (BN), and acidic (AN), dispersed in NaCl brine were tested to observe their interactions with n-C-7 asphaltenes and silica surfaces using the quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation (QCM-D). The properties of nanoparticles were characterized using XRD, BET, TPD, and HRTEM. Heptol 70 asphaltenes, pre-adsorbed/deposited on SiO2 sensors were used for studying the concentration effect of 10 nm-sized BN-based nanofluids, which exhibited a decreasing trend in frequency shift in the following order 1 > 10 > 25 mg/L. For toluene asphaltenes, the frequency shifts in BN nanofluids changed with the following order of concentration 100 > 150 > 50 > 25 mg/L. The effect of particle size on frequency shift, tested for toluene asphaltenes demonstrated the following order 10 > 99 > 45 > 20 nm BN. A cycle injection test between asphaltenes and a nanofluid solution was performed to evaluate the effect of the nanoparticles in a sequence injection. Wettability alteration was assessed before and after nanofluid injection using contact angle measurements, which resulted in a decrease after nanofluid injection. In addition, atomic force microscopy (AFM) measurements were performed on some of the samples to support the findings. The QSense data analysis software Q-Tools was used to determine the thickness of the layer before and after the injection of nanofluids; the trend was similar to the change in frequency for all parameters. Finally, brine-based nanofluids with 10 nm-sized BN at 1 and 100 mg/L were more effective in treating the deposited asphaltenes in heptol 70 and toluene, respectively.
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